Chapter Eleven

Pupil Attendance

Until school attendance became compulsory in the 1870’s there was no requirement for children to attend school. Many never attended at all and others only intermittently. This made it difficult to teach the children. They were grouped according to their standard of attainment, not age, which led to mixed age classes.

Teachers were particularly interested to know the whereabouts of absent children, as low attendance would result in a reduced Government Grant for the year [introduced in 1862]. In many instances the children were working and a variety of occupations are mentioned in the Log Books.

Agricultural labour drew many children from school, particularly on a seasonal basis. In spring they were often engaged in market gardening. Several went pea picking in July. Harvesting and gleaning are referred to in summer and autumn. In September and October many families went to the hop fields of Worcestershire and Herefordshire. Conditions in the hop fields could be tough but it was as opportunity to earn money and have a change of scene. Hop picking is mentioned from the 1860’s to at least the 1930’s and attempts to discourage it failed. In the 1870’s consideration was given to moving the summer holidays to September to cover the hop-picking season but this suggestion was never adopted.

The girls in particular were frequently required to help at home, some even being fetched out of school part way through the day. Boys too were required as ‘nurses’ either looking after sick family members or younger children. In October 1865 the Boys’ master Mr. Fowler evidently disapproved of a boy being required to help at home in preference to his sisters but ‘Mrs. Cook sent word that Samuel could not come to school, when his sisters did, as one of her children must mind the baby’. Perhaps Samuel was better at minding the baby than his sisters. Children were also used to take messages or run errands.

A few of the older children found employment within the school itself as monitors. The wage was often 1/- or 2/- per week. Several of these children became pupil teachers either within the school or elsewhere but many did not progress into teaching.

A few children attended as ‘Half-timers’ combining work with school. The Boys’ Log of November 1866 states ‘Three old boys re-admitted today – they have been away a year at different work. Now they come as Half-timers – i.e. they can only come on Mondays and till eleven on Tuesday mornings’.

Many of the children had employment in the nail shops. A number of references are made to boys ‘blowing for the nailers’ – working the bellows to heat the furnace, or to their being ‘at the forge’. The importance of nail making in the village was noted at times of the Nailers’ Strikes – numbers at school invariably dropped because families could not afford the necessary school pence. Nail making was not confined to the boys and men. The Girls’ Night School was inspected in 1867. The Inspector wrote ‘An institution of the kind must be greatly needed in the district where so many of the girls are employed in nail making’. The following year he commented again that the Night School ‘is evidently doing very useful work among the girls and young women of the surrounding nail shops’.

The presence of working women in the nail shops may partly explain the frequent need for older children to ‘mind the baby’ whilst their mothers worked. A nail shop would have been a dangerous place for a young child.

Some girls left school to go into service and there are references to housekeepers enquiring for references or ‘characters’ for the girls.

Work could be dangerous. One boy lost two fingers in a machine in February 1867. After 1870 there are references to visits by the Inspector of Factories enquiring about the attendance of the children, and shortly afterwards an Attendance Officer was employed. By the late nineteenth century far fewer children were absent from school on account of work but some still managed to ‘escape the system’ in February 1935 a boy aged 9 was admitted to the lowest class of the Boys’ school – he was bright but ‘being the son of a circus performer he has not attended any one school regularly’.

Other causes for absence from school included illnesses and epidemics prevalent during the early years [references can be found in the chapter ‘Health’]. The other main distraction from attending school came from visiting ‘entertainments’ to the district – a temptation too strong to resist [references can be found in the chapter ‘Entertainments and Celebrations’].

From the middle of the Twentieth Century onwards attendance became far more stable. During the 1960’s and 1970’s the attendance figures rose to a steady 95-98%. Only occasionally has the schools’ attendance been affected during the latter part of the Twentieth Century as in December 1973 when a third of the Junior School was absent due to illness.